Help support our writers and journalists.
Commentary
A New Way to Count African Forest Elephants: DNA From Dung
by Alice Laguardia and Gaspard Abitsi - The Revelator An important new survey — the first nationwide test of new technology — also reveals critical conservation priorities. In 2013 our colleagues Fiona Maisels and Samantha Strindberg, working with several other conservation partners, documented a devastating decline in forest elephants in Central Africa. Their work revealed that approximately 65% of all remaining African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) had perished between 2002 and 2013 — in large part to feed the burgeoning global trade in elephant ivory. Their work resulted in...
Twenty Years Since a Massive Ivory Seizure, What Lessons Were Learned?
By Julian Newman - Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) In late June 2002, the container ship MOL Independence docked at Singapore port after a voyage of almost a month from Durban in South Africa. On board was a consignment which had been on a far longer journey. Beginning in an industrial area on the outskirts of Lilongwe, the capital of land-locked Malawi in southern Africa, the container was taken by road to the port of Beira in neighbouring Mozambique and loaded onto a feeder vessel to Durban. According to the Bill of Lading, its contents were stone sculptures. Acting on a tip-off...
News
Nigeria: Customs Arrests Expatriates Over Smuggling Of Pangolin Scales, Elephant Tusks
By Yusuf Babalola, Leadership The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), on Sunday, arrested three Vietnamese and five others for attempted trafficking of 397.5kg pangolin scales and ivories through...
Kenya: Conservancies To Roll-Out Comprehensive Insurance For Community Rangers
Wagema Mwangi, Kenya News Agency In November 2020, Corporal Joseph Ngeti, one of the longest serving community rangers working with Wildlife Works, a community-centered wildlife conservation company...
Gabon: When beekeeping reduces community pressure on the forest and wildlife
By Boris Ngounou, Afrik 21 In the provinces of Ogooué-Ivindo and Ngounié, located respectively in the north-east and south of Gabon, local communities are being introduced to the practice of...
Press releases
Press Release: City life or farm life? When elephants adapt to different human development
By Tempe Adams - Elephants Without Borders Kasane, Botswana- New research led by Elephants Without Borders (EWB) has discovered that elephant movement through wildlife corridors is directly impacted by differing forms of human pressures and development. From 2012 to 2019, EWB monitored...
Studies
Who is adjusting to whom?: Differences in elephant duel activity in wildlife corridors across different human-modified landscapes
By Adams T.S.F., Leggett K.E.A, Chase, M.J. & Tucker M. - Frontiers...
The Virtual Fence Dynamic: A Breakthrough for Low-Cost and Sustainable Mitigation of Human-Elephant Conflict in Subsistence Agriculture?
By Michael La Grange, Collen Matema, Bella Nyamukure & Richard Hoare -...
“Smelly” Elephant Repellent: Assessing the Efficacy of a Novel Olfactory Approach to Mitigating Elephant Crop Raiding in Uganda and Kenya
By Lydia N. Tiller, Ernest Oniba, Godfrey Opira, Ewan J. Brennan, Lucy E....
Reports
Investigation into the trophy hunting of elephants in Botswana’s Community-Based Natural Resource Management areas
By Dr Adam Cruise Click here to read the report. It has been stated ad nauseum that trophy hunting brings in necessary revenue for remote rural communities, and that the practice also provides assistance in increasing wildlife populations and mitigates human wildlife conflict, especially...
About
The Journal of African Elephants was created by a group of concerned journalists, biologists and conservationists, who, after years of tracking and documenting the catastrophic decline of Africa’s elephant populations, have recognised the urgent need for a dedicated English and French news and commentary space to enhance and increase global awareness of the plight of Africa’s savanna and forest elephants. Our Commentary service, in particular, are writers that focus on the need to provide awareness of Africa’s elephants and affected surrounding human communities from a distinctly African perspective that, for the most part, is lacking in the dominance of Western media.